international journal on minority and group rights 24 (2017) 1-23 brill.com/ijgr The Limit of Narratives: Ethnicity and Indigenous Rights in Papua, Indonesia Irene I. Hadiprayitno Universiteit Leiden, The Hague, The Netherlands Abstract As in many countries in Asia, the concept “indigenous” is a highly contested term in Indonesia. The government is of the opinion that Indonesia is a nation that has no indigenous peoples, or that all Indonesians are equally indigenous. The article aims to analyse the role and the paradox of using ethnic narratives, i.e. distinct social, econom- ic or political systems, as well as language, culture and beliefs as their material and po- litical basis, in the articulation of indigenous rights. Upon discussing a case study from Papua, Indonesia, it is observed that the use of ethnic narratives does create opportu- nity structures necessary for the struggles of indigenous rights. However, the salience of these endeavours is shaped by how these groups, their autonomy and marginalisa- tion are positioned in the wider context of development, sovereignty and territoriality, which make them also dependent on the design and orientation of the state. Keywords indigenous peoples – human rights – ethnicity – agricultural modernisation – Papua, Indonesia 1 Introduction The struggles for the rights of indigenous peoples have begun long before the General Assembly in 2007 adopted the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (undrip). The Declaration asserts that in- digenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an indigenous community or a nation, in accordance with the traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned; they also have the right to determine their © Irene I. Hadiprayitno, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15718115-02401004 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0Downloaded license. from Brill.com09/24/2021 05:38:37PM via free access <UN> 2 Hadiprayitno own identity.1 Communities are generally considered indigenous because they have a deeper attachment to lands in which they live (or ancestral lands from which they were removed) than other groups in the society settled on those same lands.2 Regardless that it is not legally binding, undrip is symbolically important. It establishes global standards for the treatment of distinct groups and communities and has been an indispensable vehicle for proliferating the idea of indigenous rights across the globe. Examining indigenous rights in the context of Asia requires a shift of approach. Compared to similar studies in other regions of the world, differ- ent dynamics and indigenous geographies exist due to less prevalent European colonialization.3 The concept of “indigenous” is highly contested throughout much of the region, with only Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, Cambodia and Japan having really embraced the modern term, albeit in somewhat different ways.4 It is normally impossible to identify someone as indigenous in Asia. Nonetheless, articulating indigenous rights also implies linking indigeneity to ethnicity, for many have long understood the term indigenous as being funda- mentally associated with dividing people based on ethnicity. Furthermore, in many Asian countries ethnicity ceases to be merely a means of making group markers. The term is appropriated at the heart of power struggles and in the political and legal process aiming to combat human rights violations. To vary- ing degrees, ethnic categories are increasingly used to capture state power, change state policies or restructure state institutions.5 Encounters with eco- nomic modernisation and the negative impacts of resource extraction have been observed to bring about social convergence and homogenisation based 1 Article 9, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 2 Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples reads: “indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No reloca- tion shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return”. 3 B. Kingsbury, ‘“Indigenous Peoples” in International Law: A Constructivist Approach to the Asian Controversy’, 92:3 The American Journal of International Law (1998) p. 433. 4 For more elaboration on this topic, see I. G. Baird, ‘Translocal assemblages and the circula- tion of the concept of “indigenous peoples” in Laos’, 46 Political Geography (2015) pp. 54–64; D. Inman, ‘From the Global to the Local: The Development of Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights Internationally and in Southeast Asia’, 6:1 Asian Journal of International Law (2016) pp. 46–88. 5 E. Aspinall, ‘Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia: Nine Theses’, 11:2 Journal of East Asian Studies (2011) p. 292. international journal on minority and groupDownloaded rights from Brill.com09/24/2021 24 (2017) 1-23 05:38:37PM via free access <UN> The Limit of Narratives 3 on ethnicity.6 Additionally, transnational networks of organisations also pres- ent new sources, ideas, identity and legitimacy for ethnic groups.7 The objective of this article is to consider the use of ethnicity in indigenous rights struggles, by exploring its intricacies in the context where ethnicity and indigeneity are considered contestable terms. What will be scrutinised is the articulation of ethnicity and narratives around it, which are story-lines applied to frame the questions of exclusion and inclusion in development project’s deliberation and implementation. Reflections are made on struggles for in- digenous rights that use distinct social, economic or political systems, as well as language, culture and beliefs as their material and political basis. To illus- trate, the case of agricultural modernisation in Merauke, the southern district of Papua Province, is selected since it offers insights of invoking ethnicity in indigenous rights claims especially in Indonesia. For decades, the Indonesian government is of the opinion that Indonesia is a nation which has no indig- enous people, or that all Indonesians are equally indigenous.8 The article shows that the integration of ethnicity as well as their assertive- ness or decline is explicable to and implicated by the design and orientation of the state and the cultural and political work of articulation. In certain circum- stances, ethnicity and the narratives of distinct political, cultural, economic and geographical realities can create opportunity structures necessary for the struggles of indigenous rights. However, the salience of these endeavours is shaped by how these groups, their autonomy and marginalisation are po- sitioned in the wider context of development, sovereignty and territoriality, which make them also dependent on the design and orientation of the state. Analytically, the article advances the debates on indigenous rights struggles in Asia and argues for contextualising the subject against the multifaceted histor- ical, legal and political arrangements that both promote and jeopardise such opportunity structures in their interactions. The next section reviews scholarly literatures that discusses ethnicity and the articulation of indigenous rights. The discussion continues by examin- ing the position of Papua in Indonesian political discourses and the extent 6 See for example J. Bertrand, ‘“Indigenous peoples’ rights” as a strategy of ethnic accommoda- tion: contrasting experiences of Cordillerans and Papuans in the Philippines and Indonesia’, 34:5 Ethnic and Racial Studies (2011) pp. 850–869. 7 R. Niezen, The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 2003) pp. 165–170. 8 S. Kusumaatmadja, ‘The Human Dimensions of Sustainable Development’, in H. P. Arimbi (ed.), Proceeding, Seminar on the Human Dimensions of Environmentally Sound Development (walhi and Friends of the Earth, Jakarta, 1993) pp. 12–15. international journal on minority and group rightsDownloaded 24 from(2017) Brill.com09/24/2021 1-23 05:38:37PM via free access <UN> 4 Hadiprayitno to which distinct political, cultural, economic and geographical realities of Papuans are legitimised. A case study from Merauke, Papua is examined to discuss the ways the adoption of narratives of ethnicity in struggles for in- digenous rights are developing the promotion of human rights in Indonesia. Of interest here is also to understand the process of articulation and how it can both enable as much as disable the enterprise of conflating ethnic narra- tives with indigenous peoples’ concerns. Finally, the conclusion presents the politics and paradoxes of using ethnic narratives and indigenous rights in Indonesia, and more broadly in Asia. 2 Ethnicity and the Articulation of Indigenous Rights Circulated during the historical process of decolonisation of the 1960s, “ethnic- ity” is a contested term and is defined broadly from “the positive feelings of belonging to a cultural group”9 to “a subset of identity categories in which eligi- bility for membership is determined by attributes associated with, or believed to be associated with, descent”.10 As the willingness and capacity of the inter- national community and nation states to accommodate indigenous peoples’ claims is acquired, particularly through the adoption of undrip, the debate incorporates more concerns. These include recognition and redistribution as well as ethnicity and natural